


That Man On The Motorcycle

by LVE32



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 221B Baker Street, 221B Ficlet, Background Case, Case Fic, Crime Fighting, Cute, Domestic Life at 221B Baker Street, F/M, Fluff, Funny, Jealous Sherlock, Jealousy, Just a short random scenario coz why not, Motorcycles, Pre-Relationship, Sexual Tension, Short One Shot, sherlock looks hot on a motorcycle, short and sweet, stake out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:49:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28618326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LVE32/pseuds/LVE32
Summary: Did this for a request on Wattpad, thought I'd put it here coz why not.Just a short pre-relationship fic about Y/N thinking Sherlock looks dashing on a motorcycle. Well, she doesn't know it was Sherlock. Not yet.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & Reader
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My Motorcycle is my most prized possession, so thank you to the person who requested a fic about something so close to my heart.

_‘Wait here,’_ is what Y/N had been asked to do, so ‘wait here’ is what she has been doing for the past two hours and thirty-eight minutes.

She’d spent most of that time fighting the urge to lean against the wall behind her. It's blackened with smog, and slick from last night’s rain, but it's _also_ solid and dependable and _there_. And her legs are so tired. So tired. 

Her other activities mainly include distracting herself from that fact. So far, she's been doing this by: 

\- Reading

\- Attempting to blow a ring into the frigid air with her breath

\- Watching a trail of ants

and 

\- Trying to winkle out the stuck string from inside her hoodie. She’d pulled the left toggle until the right one disappeared into the soft old material, perhaps never to be seen again. She’s not upset about this. She’d done it on purpose, to give herself something to do.

At present, her finger and thumb wriggled---once more---into the hole of the hood's seam, and---once more---fumbled about the close quarters blindly. This time, however, they _did_ manage to close on the elusive end of the string. With a small swell of triumph, Y/N tugged it free, and then tugged it some more until it lined up perfectly with the left one.

That little swell of triumph was short-lived; after barely a second it pittered out like a snuffed flame. 

What is she supposed to do now?

She sighed and finally let her shoulderblades come to rest against the wall. She pictured the scuffs of grime the manky old brickwork would leave across her back like chaotic bruises, but didn’t care. Not as much as she would have done earlier. She can just wash it, after all. 

What kind of car had Sherlock instructed her to look out for, again? A BMW? Or had he simply said ‘blue’? 

It doesn’t really matter, it's not like the car in question will be at risk of getting lost in a sea of traffic. In all the time Y/N has been standing here, the only thing to pass past her eye line had been a middle-aged man walking a beyond-middle-aged dog.

‘Here’ is a grid of warehouses just passed the outskirts of central London. They’re organised in neat rows as if queued up to be let in, not that they ever would be. Their blocky, towering bulk would never fit into the city’s slick, contemporary framework. 

They may be an eyesore, but Y/N has found that to work in her favour. The narrow corridors between each building making a perfect hiding spot for the rental car she’d arrived in, the high walls keeping her and her vehicle safely concealed.

…

Meanwhile, several towns away, Sherlock used one finger to push the visor up away from his eyes until he heard it click into place somewhere over the crown of his head. The antifog had held its own for a commendable nineteen-minutes before quaking to the onslaught of condensation.

With the sheet of tinted---now rather moist---plastic out the way, Sherlock could see each breath bloom in a cloud before his face in the bitter January air. He felt glad for the cold, though, and relished in the crispness of it; his face had felt sticky and trapped, encapsulated within his crash helmet.

Well, it’s not _his_ crash helmet. He’d leased it from the shop a few blocks away, and it still faintly smells of its previous wearers; no matter how many spritzes of Febreeze the rental guy gave its tatty interior.

Sherlock felt a slight ache for his own helmet---his own bike. He’d had to leave them both at his parent’s house when he moved to London; there’s little room in this metropolis’ tight tangle of streets for a cruiser motorcycle, and even less room to store the thing when not in use.

Still, it eased his mind to know it’s still tucked up safe in the garage of his childhood home, waiting for him to return one day and take it out to stretch its legs. Wheels. Whatever.

When he’d last said goodbye, he'd wrapped it lovingly in a few sheets of tarpaulin to keep the dust from its slender spokes and shining pipes. And to keep Mother from fretting whenever she goes into the decrepit old building to get her gardening supplies. She hated the thing, always has. 

_It’s too dark,’_ she’d fuss whenever he’d wheel it out into the driveway to ride or clean or tune-up. _‘There’s so much black, no one will be able to see you'._

 _'We live in the middle of nowhere,'_ Sherlock would soothe, _‘_ _There's no one_ to _see me.'_

Not exactly a lie. For the most part, he _was_ the only traffic---besides the occasional tractor lumbering from field to field---and he could easily skirt around those. His bike is perfect for that; its stretched-out body weaving neatly down the ribbon-like back roads like a droplet of water down a window, its chunky, suspension-rich tyers effortlessly rolling over whatever rubble, muck, and grit the British countryside could throw at them.

Presently, Sherlock adjusted his position on his rented bike, the seat alien and unfamiliar beneath him. It’s smaller than the one he’s used to, more narrow and firm; like he’s sitting astride a wooden bench in a school canteen, its edges digging into his thighs.

 _‘Because this is a cafe racer,’_ he reminded himself with a small sneer.

He’d picked it because it’s light-weight body would be quick and easy to manoeuvre around the tightly-knit London streets---useful, when stalking a larger vehicle---but perhaps a sports bike would have been a better choice, he’s realising now. Designed for quick, sparse use, cafe racers are not the kind of machine you want to be straddling for long periods of time. Like for a stakeout.

…

Fifteen minutes have passed, and Y/N has found something else to do. She’d taken her wallet from her pocket and used the receipt from the rental car company to make a little paper aeroplane. It’s the best she could manage without a table to lean on, and she raised an arm---out of habit---to throw it, but stopped herself.

She shouldn’t really lean out from behind the protection of this wall.

_\- Record the guy delivering the stolen car_

_\- Wait for Sherlock._

Those were her instructions. She’s not going to risk being seen---and jeopardise the whole case---just so she can test her miniature paper aeroplane.

Probably.

No, she’s not. The wind would blow it away anyway.

...

Finally, movement occurred, and Sherlock’s gloved hand gravitated to the ignition key. He turned it, allowing the bike’s squat little engine to heat up while he watched the door to an unmarked building open a fraction. 

A man in grubby overalls exited through the gap, locked the door behind him, then followed a driveway around to the back of the building. 

There was a pause where Sherlock guessed the man was bundling himself into the stolen BMW, and then an engine roared to life like an animal woken in a cage.

Sherlock eased his rented motorcycle backwards a few centimetres, just to make sure the front wheel wouldn’t be seen as the angular nose of the BMW inched its way out of the driveway. 

Sherlock had ridden the hired motorcycle to this location, yet he still wasn’t used to the effortlessness of it’s handling; so different to the leisurely, weighty bulk of his Triumph. His bike is like a horse, heavy and lumbering---in a graceful sort of way. _This_ bike, in comparison, is like straddling a flee; excitable, jumpy, and energetic. 

His grip on the clutch tightened subconsciously.

There was a pause where the driver flicked with the multitudinous controls at his disposal, then eased the sleek shape of the BMW towards the main road. 

Sherlock watched it slide past his hiding spot, feeling every ripple of its power vibrating through the bike's stiff little suspension coils.

The driver eased the sports car into the flow of traffic as neatly as a surgeon inserting a scalpel into flesh, and Sherlock waited for three cars to come between it and himself before taking tail. 

He released the clutch, and, as he'd suspected, the little bike leapt to attention, responding readily to every slight shift of his hand or press of his foot. 

Eager to move---or perhaps to show off to its current rider---the little bike growled irritably until Sherlock kicked it up into a higher gear, and then whizzed along contentedly; apparently unaffected by the weight of its six-foot rider---despite its stature. 

Yes, this machine will be useful should he need to suddenly disappear down a backstreet, or duck into another lane with a second's notice, Sherlock contemplated over the still-audible grumble of the BMW. 

Not that he'd probably need to. One good thing about this impish, toy-like Honda is that no one is likely to pay it any mind. It's a teen's bike, a quick, tiny thing for popping to the shops or transporting pizza. Sherlock could probably cling blatantly and obviously to the BMW’s rear for the entire journey without the driver ever giving him a second glance in his stupidly expensive wing mirrors.

…

Y/N felt the BMW’s engine before she heard it, the distant rumble vibrating up through the concrete below her shoes and into her legs.

She knew it was the car she had been asked to wait for immediately; someone of Sherlock’s prestige wouldn’t be hired for any old stolen car dealership. This one had taken what felt like an age to track to this warehouse; that level of secrecy would be wasted on a bunch of beaten up Fords and Volvos.

Pulling her phone from her hoodie, Y/N edged carefully around the opposing wall until she had a clear view of the road leading to the row of warehouses. 

Sure enough, an unfathomably expensive car honed into view with a sound so loud Y/N wondered for a moment whether it was physically tearing up the pavement.

It couldn’t be, however, because there were other cars behind it, innocent bystanders trekking home from work, or to that retail park down the next road. 

The BMW broke away from them as it exited the main road, and Y/N's thumb found the record button. She lifted her hand high, holding it at eye level so the lens cleared the wire fence surrounding the warehouse forecourt. She'd waited for almost three hours to get this evidence; she's going to do it right. 

The car slowed as it pulled through the open gate, dropping into a crawl with the gait and sound of a hunting panther, inadvertently giving Y/N a comfortable few seconds to zoom in on the face of the unsuspecting driver.

Alerted no doubt by the sound of the car---or perhaps the way the very ground seems to shudder with the power of its twelve-cylinder engine---the warehouse door three down from Y/N’s left quivered as someone unlocked it from the inside.

Keeping snug to the wall---which had, by now, covered her entire back in sooty, slippery grime---Y/N angled her phone in the active warehouse’s direction.

When the warehouse doors had slipped shut behind the BMW---like a giant maw consuming a sleek, glossy fish---Y/N’s ears pricked up at the sound of a second engine. It was so much quieter than the first, so close to a buzzing sound that Y/N almost passed it off as some sort of insect.

It wasn’t an insect, though. Y/N turned back to the winding road leading up to the warehouse lot, squinting to make out an advancing dot on the horizon. 

It appears to be a motorcycle. 

Pegging the little machine as an outrageously lost delivery boy, Y/N let her shoulders sink against the slippery wall again decided to watch him---seeing as she has nothing better to do. Maybe, when he realises he's made a mistake, he'll unwittingly amuse her with an ungainly attempt at a u-turn. 

The bike didn't turn around, though, and continued making its way towards the gate. With the BMW safely out of sight, it seemed to have gained a new sense of purpose, and began to look less like a delivery boy with every second Y/N spent staring at it.

Its rider---Y/N could make him out now---didn’t look like a delivery boy either (and it definitely was a he; the broad shoulders and height gave that away, despite the padded leathers). He isn't wearing a luminous jacket, for one thing, and there doesn't appear to be a blue _Deliveroo_ cargo box strapped anywhere on the spindly little bike’s frame. Y/N wasn’t sure a bike of that kind even has somewhere to _put_ a cargo; there’s barely enough room for the tall, muscled rider as it is.

Not that that appeared to be giving him any difficulty. The rider was seated, not comfortably, but competently, on the bike’s narrow little seat, his spine a smooth arch as he leaned forwards to control the handlebars tucked low and close to the front of the bike. 

Y/N couldn't imagine the thing was very comfortable to ride, all stooped over like that, but the man steered it as though it was, the toes of his boots lightly touching the gears like it was second nature, his arms lose and relaxed. 

She watched as they---the bike and rider acting very much as one entity---cleared the road’s tight corners nonchalantly, the alarming way the rider’s knees almost brushed the tarmac around the tighter bends not seeming to bother him in the slightest.

Y/N made sure she was well hidden as the bike entered the forecourt, the rider clicking it into a lower gear as the faceless void of his helmet turned this way and that as if looking for something.

Failing to find it, he drew away and continued along the line of buildings until he was three down from the one the BMW had entered. He must have been in line with an alleyway, then, because---like a shark flicking through the water---he disappeared between a yellow warehouse and its blue neighbour.

Definitely not a delivery boy.

 _‘Probably just someone who owns or works at one of the other warehouses,’_ Y/N thought to herself, realising how heavy her arm had become from holding her phone aloft for so long.

She let it fall down to a comfortable level, and noted the little red recording button still flashing away, forgotten. 

Quite unintentionally, she’d filmed the guy on the motorcycle.

No matter; when she and Sherlock present the video as evidence to Scotland yard, they can just edit that bit out. 

Not before Y/N has watched it again, though. 

There’s something mesmerising about the competent, graceful man; something peaceful, almost appealing about the skilful way he controls his machine.


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock took a taxi after dropping the bike off at the rental shop, but still managed to beat Y/N home. Probably because---while her car was stuck lumbering through traffic---Sherlock’s little rental bike could weave through any congestion like a kestrel through trees.

He’d rather still be on the road, if he’s honest; even though the old borrowed leathers had smelt of Febreeze and were so old they’d hardened to a point of mummification.

Being on the road means having to think about the vehicles around you, the signposts protruding from the streets, the hum of the engine and what it means.

Being at home means your mind is free to wander, and, at present, Sherlock’s mind keeps wandering to the same thing: the case.

He knows he’d been right to call the police on the car dealers---there _had_ been so many of them, after all---too many for Y/N and himself to deal with alone, anyway.

Raids are like insect nests, Sherlock had always thought, rather poetically.

The little ones---one or two unarmed perpetrators in a poorly-planned location---are like a bee’s nests. Sherlock can usually deal with these alone. He may get a few stings, but, overall, they’re not too bad to split open.

Next is a wasp’s nest. They usually consist of low-level groups of organised criminals or highly guarded buildings peppered with security features. They’re harder to infiltrate, and usually require assistance of some kind (Sherlock’s go-to being Y/N), but not impossible to bust without help from professionals.

Finally, there are hornet’s nests; highly equipped, well-thought-out locations teeming with swarms of highly trained, ruthless hornets.

The BMW dealer’s warehouse had definitely been a hornet’s nest. There had been over eleven men inside, from what he could see through a narrow strip of window, and God knows how many more from what he couldn’t.

Sherlock would rather the shiny expensive car run him over than drag Y/N in _there_.

So he’d immediately---yet graciously---stepped down to Plan B, and tipped off the police about a shifty car dealership in the warehouse lot down Grey Street.

It had been the right thing to do, even though it meant he’d miss out on the satisfaction of personally dumping some low-lifes at the police station.

…

When Sherlock had texted Y/N telling her to meet her back at the flat, she had almost been tempted to hang behind a little while to see if that man on the motorcycle---

If that man on the motorcycle what?

Would go past her as he drives back from wherever he came?

Then what?

She can’t ask for his number---she has no idea what he looks like, after all.

Well, she knows he’s lean and tall; his long, svelte body had to be around six foot, didn’t it? It had been hard to tell while the length of it was arched over a bike, and even harder to tell from the pixels of her phone screen. He hadn’t been old, but he hadn’t been overly young either; his body moving with the easy efficiency of a strong, deft male who was probably somewhere in their late twenties or early thirties.

If she had seen him again---for real---and if she had gotten a peek at his face---and liked it---would she have had the _guts_ to ask for his number?

She brushed that thought aside and relaxed into the back of the cab.

…

When Y/N finally arrived home, Sherlock tossed the book he had been reading onto the coffee table, not even bothering to mark his place. It was something his brother had leant him, something old and translated from French.

 _“I can’t speak French,”_ Sherlock had said, which was both true and a relief.

The relief was short-lived, however, because Mycroft then gifted him with a rant about his lack of culture, and, two days later, an English version of the blasted book through his letterbox. A post-it was pressed to the front, suggesting he _‘compensate Mother for those wasted language lessons’._

The book was simplistic and mundane. Sherlock suspected the majority of its splendour had been lost in translation, which was a pity, really, because at least some pleasing imagery would have spruced up the monotonously basic plot.

It featured some comely damsel who spends seven chapters fawning over a gallant knight. She’s never seen his face---for it is always obscured by a helm---and yet she becomes instantly infatuated.

Sherlock found it irritating. No comely damsel has fawned over _him_ , even when they _can_ see his face.

Y/N kicked off her shoes as Sherlock crossed the room to greet her, welcoming the company. Her hoodie was missing a tassel.

“What happened here?” Unable to bite back a smile, he plucked the material where the string would ordinarily be danging from like a piece of nibbled, ropey spaghetti. He knew what had happened: as something to do, Y/N has a habit of making one end disappear into the hood so she can try to grab it and pull it out again.

The corner of her lip twitched: “I got it stuck and now I can’t get it out again.”

“I’m sorry the case bored you. Would you like some help?”

“It wasn’t boring,” Y/N insisted quickly, and Sherlock merely raised an eyebrow as he fetched a paperclip from his desk draw. “Okay, the waiting around bit was, but I enjoyed all the rest of it. ”

Sherlock hooked the end of Y/N’s missing tassel with the bent wire easily, and tugged it free. “Do you think anyone saw you?”

 _He_ hadn’t seen her on his arrival, and she hadn’t come to find him whilst he’d been parking the bike, which had aroused feelings of both pride and disappointment. She is sharp enough to know that she should remain hidden, and he trusts in her ability to find a suitable place to do so---yet, he’d still have liked to see her.

“No, I don’t think so. Thank you." Her eyes went slightly crossed as she watched Sherlock pull the strings of her hoodie to equal lengths below her nose.

Sherlock tried to bite back another smile.

“I got the footage. If we put it with the rest, the judge will have no choice but to find the car dealers guilty. Their trial should be pretty quick.”

“Good, I’m getting sick of the witness stand.”

“And I think the judge is getting sick of _you_ ,” Y/N quipped, which got her a pretend frown.

“It’s her fault for asking me stupid questions.”

“They’re not stupid, that’s how the legal system works.”

“Then the legal system is stupid.” Sherlock crossed the room to his laptop and booted it up while Y/N hunted around their cable draw for the one belonging to her phone.

 _“You’re_ stupid.”

…

Sherlock stuck his tongue out at her, but she was still rifling through the cable draw, so probably didn’t see.

She had pulled one cable out and three hundred had come out with it, so she shrugged and brought the whole bunch over and dumped it on Sherlock’s desk. He regarded it for half a second and then plugged one of the protruding USBs into the old Macbook and one of the jacks into Y/N’s phone.

The little _‘connected’_ icon popped up immediately.

They both took a seat, having to shift some things around to make room to do so; a mug of cold, congealed tea (that could have belonged to either of them), a stack of papers featuring multiple photos of severed limbs (definitely Sherlock’s), and several desk toys (again, either of them).

Y/N pulled the laptop closer to her side of the desk so she could watch what Sherlock was doing. Her presence isn’t necessary, but she wanted to watch anyway, and her flatmate didn’t seem to have any objection to her being there. In fact, he angled the screen downwards a little, to account for the lower angle of Y/N’s eye line.

Y/N watched as Sherlock sifted through the many _many_ files on her phone until he found the footage they’d taken of the BMW dealers over the past week or so, then dragged them to a blank email addressed to Lestrade.

Greg has nothing to do with this case and yet Sherlock had decided to send the evidence to him anyway. Y/N sometimes wonders whether he actually knows anyone else at Scotland yard, or if he just does it to get on the detective inspector’s nerves.

Probably both.

“You might want to trim the last one,” Y/N pointed out as he moved the cursor over to drag the final file. “There’s almost a minute of stuff you don’t need on the end.” She felt her cheeks heat and almost reached over to open the window, then noted the frost crystallised at the corners of the panes.

Sherlock opened the editing tool and skipped the video until the dark silhouette of the motorcyclist graced the screen like a shadow. He said nothing, just looked slightly puzzled as he selected the tiny scissors icon and highlighted the footage he wanted to snip off.

When he dragged the little white arrow over to _‘SAVE CHANGES’,_ Y/N stopped him quickly.

“Why did you do that?”

She’d put her had over his, pushing it safely away from the trackpad, and released him, flushing under his confused pale eyes. “I want a copy of the original.”

His eyebrows disappeared under his curly fringe. “Whatever for?”

“The motorcyclist is hot.”

…

Sherlock blinked at her.

“The motorcyclist?” He repeated slowly. His tone had been edged with confusion, and Y/N’s expression shifted from embarrassed to affronted.

More than defensively: “Don’t say it like that, you probably look at women in a nice dress or short shorts; it’s the same thing.”

 _‘Women’_ , Sherlock laughed to himself bitterly. _‘Woman.’_ Just one. _‘Just you.’_

“No,” he said, aloud this time. “I mean what makes you say... _he’s_ hot?” he tested the word 'he' carefully, and Y/N didn't correct or question him. Does she really not know…? “You can’t see his face.” He watched her cheeks progress from delicate raspberry to deep strawberry.

It was strangely fascinating.

“I don’t know. Look at him.” Her eyes gravitated back to the screen.

Sherlock looked too, at the slightly-blurred shape of himself freeze-framed as he leans the bike to one side to around a tight corner. Now he’s the one blushing, but the compliment feels strange, like a set of shelves put together wrong; it’ll hold up, but there’s still something... off about it. “You keep saying _‘him’_.”

“Well, yeah. That’s a guy, isn’t it? The broad shoulders, the narrow waist---”

Sherlock preened.

“---the height---”

His hand had stilled over the laptop’s trackpad, the task he was supposed to be doing long forgotten. Sherlock isn’t really sure what to do with this information, he just knows that he should do _something_. It’s an opportunity not to be missed. “You mean to say, you don’t know who that is?” He clarified.

Y/N’s brows furrowed as she looked up at him quizzically. “No, should I?”

He pushed his shoulders into what he hoped looked like a nonchalant shrug. “It’s not that you _should_ know who it is, it’s just a little surprising that you _don’t.”_

Why doesn’t she know? Is the notion of him riding a motorcycle---and looking good doing it---that far fetched? So implausible in her mind that it doesn’t even occur to her that he’d taken a bike to the warehouse lot rather than a blocky taxi or a stuffy rental car?

“How so? Is he famous or something?”

“No, he just lives around here.”

A sudden look came over Y/N’s face, a sort of blend of hope and interest. Her ears had metaphorically pricked. “He does?”

“Yeah. Close by, actually. Really close.” _His elbow is fifteen centimetres from your upper arm._

At that moment, Sherlock decided not to tell Y/N that it was him in the vide. He’s not sure why yet. It might have something to do with the flock of compliments she was carelessly letting loose seeing as she saw no reason to be embarrassed. Would she continue to compliment the motorcyclist if she knew it was the man sitting next to her?

She will know, one day. Sherlock will tell her when the moment suits him, but not yet.

He bit his cheek to keep from the corner of his lip curling into a smile, and turned back to the laptop.

“Have you met him?” There was a sort of soft hopefulness edging Y/N’s tone, and Sherlock found it both amusing and unexplainably irritating.

He almost opened his mouth to say _‘Yes, and he’s a stuck-up bastard that you shouldn’t touch with a six-foot pole’---_ but then he remembered he’s talking about himself.

“Yes. I know him very well.”

“Is he nice?”

Is he? He'd like to think he is. He tries to be. To her, anyway. “I’d say so.”

“Is he clever?”

“That’s important to you, is it?”

“Hey, I like what I like.”

“Yes, he’s clever. As clever as me, actually.”

“High praise indeed,” Y/N prodded, but she did look genuinely impressed, which made Sherlock flush. She thinks he’s talking about another man, he reminded himself with a mental kick. “Is he good looking? You know, under the biker gear?”

“You know I’m into women, right?” _Into_ a _woman. You._

“Yeah---”

_Good._

“But surely you can guess?"

Sherlock looked at his reflection staring back at himself from the laptop’s grubby screen. His gaze weaved its way around the oily fingerprints from years of haphazard, careless use, and lingered over his high cheekbones, his almond eyes, his pointed nose. His hairstyle hasn’t changed since college, and his face is all long, and not just because his reflection is warped by that dent in the Mac's casing.

He shrugged again. “He’s okay looking, I guess.”

For a moment he said nothing, teetering on the edge of wanting to know once and for all, and preferring to remain in blissful ignorance. Could Y/N _ever_ find him attractive?

“He’s got a narrow face. And almond-shaped eyes. His hair is dark and curly. Girly, almost. And his lips are girly too. He’s kind of gaunt and lanky.” His description had tripped up somewhere and rolled down a hill of self-depreciation, but Y/N lit up and said all the same:

“Just my type.”

Sherlock couldn’t tell if she was joking, even when he took a long hard look at her through the sides of his eyes. “...What is?”

“Tall, skinny, smart-ass dark-haired guys.”

Sherlock tried to squash a sort of glowing sensation that was blossoming in his chest, and pressed his lips into a line.

He’d trimmed the video down and uploaded it to the email addressed to Greg, a silence setting in as they waited for the chunky old machine to muddle its way through the simple task they had set it. Sherlock’s brain was churning away with equal energy, one finger having crept to his mouth so he could chew thoughfully on a nail.

“You need a new computer,” Y/N said.

Sherlock blinked, pulling himself back to reality. She had a point, but he shook his head. “I like the way this one's keys feel when you press them.”

Y/N’s smile caught his peripheral.

“What?”

“You’re weird.”

People have said that to Sherlock hundreds of times throughout his life; his memories are peppered with that word, usually twisted with an ugly sneer.

But Y/N isn’t sneering, she’s still smiling.

Uncertainty: “Sorry?”

“Don’t be. I like it.”

Trying not to blush happily, Sherlock hesitated. But he had to know. He has to. “The man on the motorcycle. I could introduce you.”

Y/N opened her mouth to speak, but he continued quickly:

“But you should know, he’s...sort of weird too. He’s new to…”

_Everything._

“- _\--_ dating. Not because there’s something _wrong_ with him, he just...hasn’t found the right person yet. What I mean is, you’d have to be patient with him. He wouldn’t be able to sweep you off your feet or anything, at least not at first. I mean, he’d _try---_ ”

Yes, he’d try, since Sherlock set eyes on her he’d wanted to try. He'd wanted to try make her grin until her eyes go all crinkly, try make her laugh until she can't breathe, try make her moan his name so loud the neighbours complain.

“You don’t need to keep defending him, he sounds lovely.”

_‘Would you stand by that statement if I told you who he really is?’_

…

Y/N adjusted her hair a little---for the millionth time that day---with one hand, using a particularly shiny coat button as a mirror as she tugged on her shoes with the other.

She doesn’t know why she’s bothering with her hair; Sherlock had arranged for her to go on a motorcycle ride with the hot biker guy, so it’ll be flattened by a helmet anyway. She’d just like to make a good first impression between leaving the front door and tugging on the borrowed headgear.

Y/N had had the apartment to herself for the majority of yesterday, and now Sherlock was out again today, so she shamelessly spent some time trying on all the jumpers she owned one by one in front of the living room mirror. Sherlock had said the hot motorcycle guy---he hadn’t given her his name no matter how many times she asked---would supply her with an armoured jacket to wear during their ride, which she had been excited about. However, it would mean whatever jumper she decides to put on underneath mustn’t be too bulky, and it had taken her a while to decide on one.

Why is she so nervous?

Perhaps because she hasn’t actually gotten a glimpse of this man’s face yet. She’d just seen his body, his lean, muscled body effortlessly guiding a powerful machine---

Perhaps because it’s her first date in what feels like a decade.

Since befriending Sherlock Holmes, Y/N has been reluctant to ‘get back out there’ due to a wild, daft little dream that she might ‘get back out there’ with _him_.

But days had passed, and then months, and then he invited her to move in with him---in separate bedrooms---and she gave up hoping he’d show a romantic or even sexual interest in her.

A few times she had wondered about just coming out with it and asking if he’d like to get a drink---but something had grabbed the words and pulled the back down her throat every time she opened her mouth to do so. He’d become her best friend; she _loves_ him now, loves having him in her life. He’s like a butterfly that had landed on her; she didn't want to risk scaring him away.

Y/N could hear the sound of an engine as she neared the front door, the hot motorcycle guy apparently having pulled up before 221B at exactly the arranged time. This engine sounded different to the one belonging to the little cafe racer he’d ridden a few days ago; a bike which Sherlock had explained the man had apparently rented.

The man would be bringing his own bike for their ride today, so Y/N had been told. She liked it already and she hadn't even seen it; the sound a low, rich purr vibrating through the front door as she unlocked it. She could feel it oscillating through the wood, down the key, and into her hand.

When Y/N stepped out into the brisk January air, it was sweet with the tang of fuel.

A great stretch of gleaming black and silver stood waiting by the road, the cylinders rumbling away to themselves as though the entire thing were breathing. Muscular, all slow curves and raw power, the bike was built like a cart-horse, but the hot biker guy sat easily astride it as though it were nothing but a pony.

Hands resting on his leather-covered thighs, he was wearing different gear to that the tatty stuff he’d had on the other day. This didn’t look new either, but it was polished and as black as soot, hefty hidden metal plates complimenting his long legs and the broad width of his shoulders.

He raised his helmet-covered head as Y/N crossed the path to him, a shy smile playing on her lips; she could see its reflection in his tinted visor. He found the ignition key easily with one gloved hand and turned it, the engine falling quiet like a bee taking a break from beating its wings.

Y/N wondered what to say; whether she should fill the pregnant silence. Can he even hear her from inside his helmet?

“Your bike is beautiful,” she said. It is. Her gaze couldn’t help keep sliding along its body; there’s something about the shape of it that drags your eyes from the delicate spindles of the front wheel, all the way down to the exhaust as thick as a tree branch, still hot, making the air around it wriggle with heatwaves.

The man’s body has the same effect, apparently, because Y/N keeps finding her eyes following the curve of him, all the way down to the toes of his chuky black boots. They were spatterd with flecks of glistening mud, but there were no country roads around here, at least that Y/N knew of.

The hot biker guy sat up a little straighter, his leathers allowing the movement with nothing but a soft murmuring of material.

Y/N felt her heart rate pick up as he reached up for the helmet’s chin strap. He unclasped it with well-practised gloved fingers and then pulled the whole thing from his head, and set it in his lap.

Sherlock gave her a nervous smile. “Thank you,” he said, and it took Y/N a moment to remember what he was thanking her for.

She just blinked at him, her breath blooming in billow from her slightly parted lips.

His curls were ruffled from the static of dragging them from the helmet, and his cheekbones were dusted pink, but Y/N suspected that had nothing to do with the confined space.

He cleared his throat and leaned back enough to unclip the cargo box strapped to the sissy bar at the rear of the bike. Inside, sitting atop a pile of neatly folded leathers was a helmet, identical to his own apart from the size and the fact that it was missing a few scratches.

“So,” he held it out to Y/N, that shy smile still curving his lips, “can I take you for a ride?”


End file.
